Rome and a Villa

<p><strong>These essays gather up Rome and hold it before us bristling and dense and dreamlike with every scene drenched in the sound of fountains of leaping and falling water. -- <em>The New Yorker</em></strong></p><p><strong>Perhaps the finest book ever to be written about a city. -- <em>New York Times</em></strong></p><p><strong>Bringing to life the legendary city's beauty and magic in all its many facets Eleanor Clark's masterful collection of vignettes <em>Rome and a Villa</em> has transported readers for generations.</strong></p><p>In 1947 a young American woman named Eleanor Clark went to Rome on a Guggenheim fellowship to write a novel. But instead of a novel Clark created a series of sketches of Roman life written mostly between 1948 and 1951. Wandering the streets of this legendary city Eleanor fell under Rome's spell--its pace of life the wry outlook of its men and women its magnificent history and breathtaking contribution to world culture. Rome is life itself--a sensuous hectic chaotic and utterly fascinating blend of the comic and the tragic. Clark highlights Roman art and architecture including Hadrian's Villa--an enormous unfinished palace--as a prism to view the city and its history and offers a lovely portrait of the Cimitero acattolico--long known as the Protestant cemetery--where Keats Shelley and other foreign notables rest.</p>